


Pop Tarts and Monopoly Money

by TenKnifeFoot



Category: Leverage
Genre: Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23607532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenKnifeFoot/pseuds/TenKnifeFoot
Summary: Eliot, Parker and Hardison go ice skating, with a twist.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: 2019 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange





	Pop Tarts and Monopoly Money

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sasuhina_gal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasuhina_gal/gifts).



> I hope you like!

“Hey, Parker! You ready to go?”

“What??” Parker’s head popped around the corner of the wall, her blonde ponytail swinging.

“I said, are you ready to go?” Eliot huffed, his hands on his hips.

“Go…..where?”

“Um, we talked about this last week. Ice skating.”

“I…thought you were…kidding?” she answered, now easing from around the corner.

Eliot and Hardison exchanged a Look as the hacker walked up to join the trio, red gloves on his hands as he flipped a brightly colored scarf around his neck. In addition, he was wearing light but well-insulated coat and a knitted hat with a bright yellow pompom. Eliot sported a puffy vest over his layered shirts, a navy blue beanie on his head and fingerless gloves. The weather in Portland was 40 degrees and sunny, but the ice skating rinks were still open, and they had found one near the brewpub that the locals liked to frequent.

“Kidding?” Eliot said, exasperated. “You two have been stuck indoors for months, you have to get out and get some exercise!”

“Months?” Hardison objected.”Hey, man, it hasn’t been months, I just went out yesterday!”

“To the damn mall,” the hitter groaned. “To get another computer…..whatchamathiggy. That ain’t fresh air.”

“Yes, it was…!”

“Guys…. _guys!_ ” Parker piped up, bouncing between the two bickering men. “Ice skating?”

“Yes, Parker. Ice skating. Y’know, sliding around on flimsy metal rods fastened to our feet while we try not to fall on our ass?” Hardison said, flapping his arms like he was trying to balance.

“You mean while _you_ try not to fall on your ass,” the hitter muttered, rolling his eyes. Parker had flitted off in the middle of their rant and re-appeared in a flash, wrapping an extra long scarf around her neck. She was dressed already in boots, warm jacket and another hat with a neon pompom on the top, this one green.

“What are you two waiting for!?” she chirped, bouncing over and grabbing their jackets. “Let’s GO!”

————————————————-

“What’s the word for that infestation of tiny creatures over there?” 

“Those are children, Parker,” Eliot said wearily. “That’s a school.”

“Oh. Why are they behind a fence? Are they dangerous?”

Hardison covered up a snort and Eliot rolled his eyes, tying the laces on his right skate. The hitter stood up, his balance sure as he pushed off the bench and swooping around to face Parker as she looked up. 

“No, they’re not dangerous,” Eliot said, holding out his hand and helping her to her feet. She wobbled a little but he was ready for it, holding her elbows firmly until she steadied. “But they tend do to run away when unsupervised.”

“Ooooh! Like cats and mittens!” She grinned, looking over at the school yard again.

“Mittens….? Hey, concentrate,” Eliot reprimanded as he started to skate backwards. “Find your balance…” he cautioned as she slid toward him shakily, her hands in his.

Looking up, he saw Hardison still sitting on the bench, skates on his feet but phone in hand. “What, you’re not gonna even try, man?”

“I’d rather be pecked to death by a flock of hummingbirds.” The hacker held up the phone and started to video them.

Eliot growled under his breath and snarled at the camera, then turned his attention back to Parker.

After an hour of slowly skating back and forth, Parker was ready to attempt a pass on her own. The hitter skated backwards a few feet in front of her, his hands held out in case she needed him. His eyes always moving, he caught sight of a young girl wobbling on her skates, alone in the crowd of people, but he lost sight of her when Parker stumbled forward into his arms. A few more times he saw the little girl bump into other skaters and he didn’t think anything of it, until he caught a pattern over the hour that he was with Parker. Extending his focus, he saw two more young kids doing the same and his eyes narrowed.

Parker giggled and his eyes snapped to her, seeing her full face grin just before she launched herself at him. Almost caught off guard, he caught her in his arms and slid backwards, stopping with a twirl on his right foot. “What the hell…?” he asked, pulling back a bit.

“I knew you would catch me, Sparky!” she chirped, bouncing in his arms.

“All right, when this is all over I want my sanity back.”

The thief rolled her eyes and giggled again, grabbing his hand and pulling him back toward Hardison, wobbling only a little on her skates.

They stepped onto the wooden walkway around the ice rink and he grunted as Parker suddenly ran around behind him, hopping onto his back, skates and all. She whooped and swung her fist over her head, feet swinging, as if riding on a rodeo horse.

“Right now I don’t know if I want to kiss you or shove you off a bridge,” Eliot muttered.

“Can I pick?”

“No! You cannot pick!” he argued, seeing Hardison coming up to them with three steaming cups.

“That better be caffeine,” the hitter said.

“Three shots, m’man,” Hardison smiled and Eliot reached for it, a small child running under his arm and then past them as he did.

“All right, that’s it,” he said, arching his back and forcing Parker to either get off or take them both to the ground. Her feet hit the floor and he turned to them both, a serious look on his face. “Don’t look now, but there’s a theft ring going on here,” he said under his breath.

“A what?” Hardison asked, his eyes going wide as he turned to look. Eliot punched him in the arm.

“Dammit, Hardison! I specifically said ‘don’t look’, you moron,” he growled. “Come with me.”  


They followed the hitter over to a bench to the side of the rink, and he and Parker sat down, untying their skates as he spoke. “I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s a group of kids that seems to be pickpocketing people here,” he said quietly so that only the other two could hear.

Parker’s brows went up and although he didn’t see her looking, he could _feel_ her scanning the crowd. “Who?” was all she asked, and he described the three that he’d seen, plus another one he suspected.

“Hmm.” Hardison sat down beside them, his phone in his hand. “I don’t got any cameras in the area, nothin’ here is really….formalized. It’s just a frozen puddle with benches around it. Not even any food trucks here.”

Eliot looked around as he pretended to take a drink of his latte, one hand massaging his socked foot. Hardison was right, the area was just an old parking lot on the edge of the neighborhood that the residents had sprayed water onto, then worked all winter to keep even and free of snow. At one point someone had brought picnic tables, some benches, and it was edged with a section of old pallets that had been laid down as a sort of walkway around it. Even though quite popular, it was obviously just a community gathering place, no one in it for the money.

And therefore, no security and no cameras.

“Now, I don’t know if much has been stolen, but I sure felt a hand or two trying for my wallet,” Eliot said. He’d long since stopped keeping anything important in his pockets, preferring instead to put his money and cards in his belt, his wallet a decoy filled with newspaper.

“Anyone you see as ringleader?” Hardison asked, his eyes still focused on his phone.

“Nope. Just the kids doing their best to run into someone who looks like they need their cash lightened,” Eliot said.

“Think we need more recon?” the hacker asked then, looking over at him.

“Couldn’t hurt,” he replied. After massaging his foot, he re-laced his skates. “You gonna join me?” he asked, standing and looking down at Parker.

“Mmmnah,” she shook her head, skates already re-tied. “I think I’ll try it out on my own for a bit.”

“Okay. Just take it easy.” With that, Eliot stepped onto the ice again and pushed off in an easy slide, the skating coming back to him like he’d never left the ice. He’d pretended to be a hockey player for The Blue Line Job, but his skills had come years earlier from winters on the plains where he’d learned to skate first just in his boots as a child, and then on real skates at the rink with his buddies. He used that skill now as he wove a line around the rink, seemingly in his own world where he was just letting loose, his arms and hands easy at his side and his body relaxed as he skated.

His eyes were the only thing focused about him, that and his brain, constantly watching the little thieves as they bumped into people and fell a few times, apparently just clumsy kids having fun on the ice.

He followed them around a corner, then nearly tripped and fell flat on his own face when he saw two of the children handing something over to ….

_Parker??!?_

She looked up and saw his stop in the middle of the rink and shrugged, grinning as she patted the two on the shoulder. They took off in opposite directions, starting up their drunken monkey on skates acts as soon as they were within sight of adults again. Parker sailed toward Eliot.

Not wobbling, but all grace.

“Parker, what the hell…..” he started before she once again grabbed his wrist and pulled him back toward the side.

“Waitaminnit…” he tried, but she just jerked on his arm, making his teeth clank shut as he struggled to keep his feet under him as they make their way back to the benches where Hardison sat.  


“All right, spill,” he said, crossing his arms and setting his feet as Hardison looked up at them both, surprised at the tone in the hitter’s voice. “There’s a fine line between genius and crazy, and you like to use that line as a jump rope, Parker.”

“It’s just fake, see?” She held out what the boy had given to her and sure enough, it was greenish colored monopoly money and a boot trinket. “I gave August the boot and Anna got the cash. The game is to put it on someone, and then Wesley and Travis take it from them. I told them that if they could all do that without anyone noticing today, I’d buy them pop tarts.” She narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms and glared right back at Eliot. “Does this mean they don’t get their treat if _you_ noticed them?”

“Uh….why?” Hardison asked, puzzled.

“They wanted to learn,” she shrugged.

“Why?” Eliot repeated.

She dropped her arms and huffed a sigh. “They tried to steal from me,” she said. “I caught them right away though. Duh.” She shrugged, as if it was the most natural thing on earth. Which, to be fair, it was. “So I told them that I’d teach them. I give them things to plant on someone, and then if they can get them back without noticing, I buy them dinner. Or whatever they want.”

“Parker’s got her _own_ school!” Hardison laughed.

“I do?” She tilted her head and then grinned and gave a snorky cackle, bouncing and clapping her hands. “I do!”

“Oh, boy,” Eliot sighed under his breath, rubbing his eyes.

“Now that you know about them, can I take them home?” she asked plaintively.

“Hell no, Parker! They’re not kittens!” Eliot roared.

“Oh! Then can I get kittens!?”

“Good God…. _get!_ ” he bellowed, making shooing motions at her, and Hardison grabbed her arm, pulling her toward Lucille and away from the hitter’s wrath.

“What do you mean you ‘accidentally’ pickpocketed the President of the United States?” he heard Hardison ask her as the two of them ran toward the van.

“I gave it back!” the thief protested, then cackled. “I _like_ him! He’s got great hair!”


End file.
